We have seen these lands occupied for more than two centuries by the
emigrants from European countries; we have seen the reckless adventurer,
the noble exile, the fugitive from justice, the outcast of society,
blended together here in the experiment of colonization.
The form is still the same, for form is always more persistent than
material in organic life, but the sterling and generous qualities of the
primitive stock have greatly changed.
We have seen in these lands Slavery--that relic of barbarism, that
leprosy, the foulest that ever preyed upon the vitals of any
state--transplanted by that accursed Dutch ship, under the guise of
Humanity, flourish, increase, and assume, during this brief period, the
proportions of a despotism so powerful, so tenacious, as to defy and
resist, almost successfully, the entire strength and resources of the
Republic, enriching the slave faction with enormous wealth, but debasing
and deteriorating the morals, the blood of the poor and non-slaveholding
whites.
This increase of three millions of black men were held in bondage as human
cattle by a few thousand white men. To these unfortunate creatures society
extended no generosity, no consideration, but what reduced them still
lower in the scale of organized beings, and chained them more closely in
the sordid and selfish interests of their remorseless masters. To teach
the black man to read, even the light of the divine Gospel, was a matter
of fine, and imprisonment, and sometimes death.